


Last Man Standing

by secondalto



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairing, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-02
Updated: 2010-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondalto/pseuds/secondalto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giles reflects on those he’s lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Man Standing

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this mainly for me, if anyone else enjoys it, that’s just a great bonus. Also written for Summer of Giles 2009. Follows [Supernatural Sunnydale](http://secondalto.livejournal.com/531157.html) and [Lost Souls](http://secondalto.livejournal.com/553752.html).

He should have been inured to the affects of grief by now. But it surprised him that he was not. Every time he stood at a grave, said goodbye to someone he loved, it took a piece of his soul, a piece of his heart. So many pieces had gone by now it was a wonder he still went on. There should be a gaping hole in his life and yet he carried on. He was the last one of them left. He shouldn’t have been. He had half expected to be the first of them gone.

Rupert Giles was ninety-six years old and he was one of two people left who remembered the end of Sunnydale, California. But he’d been there from the beginning. He’d suffered loss before he’d come to be Buffy’s Watcher. He’d told her that when they buried Jenny Calendar. She’d been the first person he’d lost who he’d loved. He stood by Buffy when they lost Joyce. Then he buried Buffy, a loss that tore at the very core of him. But she’d come back, several times.  Then sweet Tara, an innocent caught in the cross-fire. Anya had been lost in the battle with the First, her grave the sinkhole left behind. The losses of Cordelia and Wesley had happened without him, but he’d gone and paid his respects in his own time.

He thought he’d seen the last of the Grim Reaper for a good long time to come. But it was not to be. Kennedy was the next to go, a vampire nest gone out of control. Willow had weathered that loss and remained single for quite some time. They never found out where Oz had ended up but learned of his death when his twin sons and their mother arrived with all his worldly goods and the address of his grave, somewhere in Turkey.  Willow had been the next lost, a showdown with a sorcerer who’d only gone down with the skill of three covens and a score of sorcerors Giles had gathered to help. She had a son and a daughter that were orphaned, the identities of their fathers unknown.

 It seemed the world couldn’t do without an apocalypse at least once a year and it was his lot to watch and record.

Xander, the heart of their group was taken in a demon attack that he should never have been a part of. He left behind a wife and newborn daughter. Giles was godfather to her and all of the children his former charges had.   None of them had lived past thirty-five. Spike had shown up now and then and finally gone down in a fight defending some of the younger Slayers. Angel had appeared on the doorstep of the Scottish castle; wounded from some battle he wouldn’t talk of, with a young man who claimed to be his son. He’d died that night. Connor, as Giles found out the boy was called, died at the hands of a Hrgrath demon. Strangely Buffy was the only one to die of non supernatural causes.  Her final death came in the form of a freak bus accident in the streets of Berlin. She left behind a son, named for him, and a daughter named for her mother. She was just past her fortieth birthday. 

This morning Giles had buried young Dawn. She’d lasted the longest of all his former charges. She’d been the head of the new Council, still going out on patrols with her Slayer. Just a random vampire who’d gotten through both their defenses. Dawn had been sixty-three, leaving no children behind. Her funeral was well attended by Slayers, watchers, her nieces and nephews both blood related and not.  The ‘Scoobies’ had progeny to carry on the fight, but it wouldn’t be the same for Giles. He left the cemetery with his wife, the only other person left who’d seen the end of Sunnydale. Dana Katherine Scully-Giles was a very lovely eighty-two, her red hair gone grey now. She didn’t quite understand the depth of his loss, the connection he’d had with his ‘children’. But she’d stood with him, fought with him, borne him children. He carried on because of her and them.  He didn’t know how many more years fate had in store for him, but he would continue to watch and record. 


End file.
